1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fingerboard and a neck suitably used for an electronic musical instrument, such as an electronic guitar, an electronic violin, and a guitar synthesizer, used in place of an acoustic stringed instrument and, more particularly, to a fingerboard and a neck having a large number of pitch designating portions for designating the pitches of musical sounds to be generated by a sound source of an electronic musical instrument in response to a fingering operation on the fingerboard.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic musical instrument of the above-described type has a fingerboard or a neck with a fingerboard. Some fingerboards have no strings put thereon. In an electronic musical instrument having no strings put on its fingerboard, strings on only the upper surface of an instrument body are picked, or push switches on the upper surface of the body are depressed so that a sound source generates musical sounds in accordance with picked strings or depressed switches.
An electronic musical instrument using a finger-board and a neck of the present invention includes all the instruments used in place of an acoustic stringed instrument regardless of the presence/absence of strings or a place where strings are kept taut.
Recently, an electronic musical instrument of a type having a fingerboard in which a large number of pitch designating switches, a resistor, or the like for designating the pitches of musical sounds to be generated by a sound source of the electronic musical instrument is embedded has been developed. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,570,521, 4,580,479, 3,624,583, and 3,626,350 disclose electronic musical instruments each having pitch designating switches arranged in a large number of spaces formed in an elastic fingerboard. In addition, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,235,141, 3,624,584, and 3,776,087 disclose electronic musical instruments each having a neck in which a conductive plate is arranged on a support member having an elongated resistor through an insulating plate having a large number of orifices. Moreover, the assignee of the present invention has recently proposed electronic musical instruments each having a neck, in which an elastic fingerboard having a large number of pitch designating movable contacts is provided on a support member having a large number of pitch designating stationary contacts, in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 069,612, 094,402, 171,883, 184,099, and 256,398.
According to the above-described conventional or proposed electronic musical instruments, however, a fingerboard on which fingering is performed is made of a frictional material, such as silicone rubber and fibrous cloth. For this reason, when a sliding performance (a fingertip is moved along the longitudinal direction of a fingerboard while the sound source of an electronic musical instrument generates a musical sound) or a pitch bend performance (in an electronic musical instrument with strings, a finger is pressed on the strings, which are vibrated to generate musical sounds, along the upper surface of a fingerboard in its widthwise direction, thereby changing the pitches of the generated musical sounds) is to be performed, smooth movement of a finger on the fingerboard may be interfered by the frictional force of the finger with respect to the fingerboard. As a result, the above-described special fingering performances cannot be smoothly and quickly performed.